In various liquid crystal display devices, a lateral electric field scheme liquid crystal display device (for example, see Patent Literature 1: JP 2008-180928 A) has an advantage of an excellent wide view angle characteristic. For example, the lateral electric field scheme liquid crystal display device includes a pixel electrode and common electrode on one of a pair of substrates, which are disposed opposite to each other with a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween, an electric field (lateral electric field) parallel to a substrate surface is generated between the pixel electrode and the common electrode, and the lateral electric field is applied to liquid crystal to drive the liquid crystal, whereby a quantity of light transmitted through the liquid crystal layer is controlled to display an image. For example, the lateral electric field scheme includes an IPS (In Plane Switching) scheme and an FFS (Fringe Field Switching) scheme.
The inventors of the present disclosure have found that a variation in display luminance occurs due to an influence of a difference in amplitude between data voltages applied to pixels adjacent to each other in the case where positive-type liquid crystal is used in the lateral electric field scheme liquid crystal display device. Particularly, in an area subjected to a longitudinal electric field, a tilt angle increases to easily lower a transmittance because the positive-type liquid crystal has a characteristic that a major axis is aligned with an electric field direction. For example, for the large difference in amplitude between the data voltages applied to the pixels adjacent to each other, one of the pixels is set to a data voltage (+Vn) having a positive polarity corresponding to a white color while the other pixel is set to a data voltage (−Vn) having a negative polarity corresponding to the white color. In such cases, the tilt angle of the liquid crystal increases due to the electric field corresponding to the difference in amplitude, particularly in a boundary between the two pixels. Therefore, the transmittances of the two pixels are lowered to lower the display luminance. Thus, in each pixel, the transmittance and the display luminance depend on levels and polarities of the data voltages applied to the pixels adjacent to each other.